It is more important than ever to protect remote employees from cyber risks. Many organizations today operate their businesses from home offices and they have little or no office environment. Even office-based companies started to immigrate to remote or hybrid work models, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. We can see that the business world has been changing at an incredible velocity and there is no escape from this transformation. The best thing to do is pace up with new requirements regarding cybersecurity and accelerate business quality in such a competitive environment.
Although there are plenty of cyber threats threatening on-premises employees, remote workers face security threats more and they are more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Furthermore, the remote workforce is more likely to fall a victim to the data breach. In these circumstances, what can companies do? Whether they will be defeated by cyber threats or accepted the truth and started to take precautions before it is too late.
Here, we will give you a brief explanation of how to protect your remote workforce and what are the most popular ways to ensure cybersecurity in business life.
1. Cybersecurity Awareness & Employee Training
The human factor is the weakest chain in cybersecurity processes. Even if a company takes advanced precautions and uses the latest technologies, it can get damaged due to human negligence. Moreover, it is hard to pursue cybersecurity solutions without the companionship of a user. As a company manager or IT specialist, you can start cybersecurity transformation with employee training. The results will be satisfying.
Training does not have to be boring or torture that employees always wanted to get rid of. You can integrate tips and important points of cybersecurity into their daily tasks and train them without extra effort. Try to send regular informing e-mails and assess their knowledge with fun pop quizzes. Most importantly, make them comprehend that if they become cybersecurity aware, they can be more productive and safe in their work. If they know why they have to obey some rules and avoid some behaviors they will be keener to implement cybersecurity necessities.
2. Zero Trust Security
Zero Trust security is the new trend in cybersecurity solutions and it does not seem to be going anywhere soon. Most organizations started to use Zero Trust security in their businesses and the rest of them have the desire to implement it. Zero Trust stands on the idea of continuous access verification and fewer privileges.
Hybrid or remote employees should have to reach HQ resources and stay communicated. They ask for access permissions and companies give them limitless access permission. Even irrelevant employees can access specific resources which contain vulnerable data or confidential information. These over-access permissions expand the attack surface and make company resources more open to cyber attacks or data breach risks. The solution is limiting access to resources and implementing strict verification methods such as 2FA or MFA.
Zero Trust prompts the idea of limited access and says that an employee can only reach the resources that he needs to continue his work. If there is no need for him to access any other resources, then he should be avoided by authentication and verification filters.
Furthermore, Zero Trust Network Access reduces internal threats by limiting privileges and minimizes account breach risks by isolating users in their specified areas. To know more about Zero Trust Network Access you can visit https://nordlayer.com/ztna/ and explore its advanced features.
3. Identity and Access Management (IAM)
As the name suggests, Identity and Access Management is for controlling identities and managing their access authorities. Although it has been used for third-party contractors and clients too, its prior target group is employees. IAM enables specific employees to reach specific resources, data, or applications. Thanks to this system, employees can access the resources that they need without any interference. They can also benefit from applications and networks.
IT managers can assign digital identities to the employees and grant their authentication when they want to log in. Employees, by using these digital identities can access the resources that they are allowed to. You can think of these identities as digital cards that only open the doors that IT managers define. In IAM implementation, defining the job descriptions and roles is crucial. To draw limits properly, IT managers can ask for help from HR and be sure that they give the right access authorization to the right person. When circumstances have changed, IT managers can easily cancel access authorities or assign different roles to each employee.
Last Words
Most of the latest cybersecurity solutions are compatible with remote work security requirements and it becomes hard for companies to decide on which to prefer. However, some of them stand out due to their specific services that support remote workers. Zero Trust and IAM are one of them. Both of two rely on access security because access security is the most important component of a security network. The good news is companies can implement both of them in their businesses and can increase their safety in terms of access authorities and identity verification. Thus, companies can fight against growing cyber threats and protect their remote workforce.
